Still holding the spotlight, Jibby backed off fast.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Raj yelled down, taking aim with his harpistol.
The spotlight’s beam caught Shade on the stairladder, making him the perfect target.
“Stop them.” Gemma clutched my arm. “They’ll listen to you.”
I shrugged off her hand. “He might be your brother, but he’s still an outlaw. He deserves to go to jail.”
Halfway up the second ladder, Shade lost his footing, crumpling as if he’d been shot in the gut. Doc stepped into the light, holding an air gun used to administer vaccines, but now it was probably loaded with some tranquilizer.
Feet scrabbling for the rungs, Shade clung to the ladder with one hand and reached for the pistol in his waistband with the other, only to twist as if he’d been punched in the shoulder by an invisible fist. His grip loosened, finger by finger, and he fell onto the lower catwalk, making the entire structure swing dangerously.
Gemma sprinted across the Saloon until she was underneath the spot where Shade was lying. Her face was tear streaked and she was breathing hard, but she said nothing as she stared up at him.
“Geez. You were right, Doc,” Lars said, amazed. He got to his feet near Gemma. “How did you know she would lead us to Shade?”
Disgust rose like bile in my throat. Doc had known all along that Shade was Richard Straid. And he’d let Gemma think her brother was dead even though he knew we’d seen Shade alive in the Saloon hours earlier.
As Shade rolled to his side, his skin danced with light as if his nervous system had gone haywire.
“He’s doing it again,” Raj said, banging down the stairs.
Doc closed in on Shade, who struggled to get to his knees.
“How can he do that?” Jibby’s voice jumped up an octave.
“I told you,” Doc said, aiming the air gun at Shade’s chest, “he’s not normal.”
I cringed.
Sitting back, Shade pulled a thick needle out of his shoulder. “Surprised you’re back in the ocean, Doc, seeing as last time didn’t go so well,” he said. “Destroyed your reputation, right?”
Doc shot another needle into him. Like a silver shard, it glinted between Shade’s ribs but he only smirked. “Still sore about your hands? Least I didn’t cut ‘em off.”
I felt sick, knowing that Shade was the one who’d slashed Doc’s palms open.
Raj kicked the outlaw onto his stomach. The needle flew from Shade’s grip, rolled across the catwalk, and fell through a crack. Gemma jumped aside as it pinged on the Saloon floor.
Pushing past me, Lars hustled up the stairs while Raj tied Shade’s hands behind his back and took the pistol from him. Both wore the same expression that Grimes had—a twisted look of fear and hatred. Shade’s Dark Gift made him a monster, and I couldn’t help but wonder if one day they’d look at me that way.
When Lars stepped onto the catwalk, dread shot through me. I looked at Gemma. But with her focus on Shade, she hadn’t noticed the rope looped over Lars’s shoulder. Or that it ended in a noose.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
“You trying to silence me, Doc?” Shade snarled from where he lay. His words sent Gemma scampering out from under the catwalk to see what was happening up above. “Afraid I’ll tell these good folk about how you tested your theories on a bunch of kids?”
“Juvenile delinquents with criminal records,” Doc retorted, nodding to Lars, who threw the rope to Raj.
Shade rose to his knees though his hands were tied behind his back. “Orphans. All wards of the ‘wealth.” His skin rippled, turning bloodred. “Got to experiment on us all you wanted. No one to interfere.”
“Shut up!” Doc gestured impatiently and Raj sent one end of the rope sailing into the air where it looped over a steel crossbeam that ran underneath the second catwalk.
I tore up the stairladder, shouting, “You can’t do this,” even though the ever-present pain in my ribs was a sharp reminder of what Shade was capable of.
When Raj played out more rope, the noose dropped into view.
“No!” Gemma raced up the stairs to the first catwalk.
I hovered by the second stairladder. If Pa were here, he would stop this. But he wasn’t, and there was no time to run and fetch him from the dining hall.
“Jibby,” Lars yelled. “Get her out of here!”
My heart lurched as Gemma tried to pry Lars’s fingers from the railing so that she could get past him. “He’s my brother,” she argued. They were twenty feet over the Saloon floor, yet she struggled so fiercely that if Lars were to suddenly move aside, she’d fall.
Clamping his spotlight to a strut, Jibby edged closer. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea, huh?”
“Are you forgetting about that bloody sub?” Lars asked.
“That was his blood.” I stepped forward. “He didn’t kill anyone!”
Behind Shade, Raj tied the end of the rope to the steel beam that edged the floor of the catwalk.
“We could call the rangers,” Jibby suggested in a hollow voice. “Let them take him.”
“So he can come back again?” Doc’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the rail. “I told you, no jail cell can hold him. No prison.”
“You give me too much credit,” Shade drawled. “Just because I busted out of your house of horrors. That don’t mean much.”
“You ain’t busting out of this.” Raj dropped the noose over Shade’s head.
Gemma’s anguished cry sparked Jibby to life. He came up behind her and spun her to face him. Before she recovered from her surprise, he muttered, “Sorry ‘bout this,” and hoisted her over his shoulder like she was the catch of the day. Quickly, he mounted the second stairladder with Gemma hollering and pounding on his back.
I positioned myself at the bottom of the stairs in case he dropped her. Upon getting an upside-down view of the Saloon floor fifty feet below, Gemma’s fists froze mid-pummel. “Ty, stop them!” She reached back toward Jibby’s shoulder. Her hand flashed forward as she dropped something at me. I stepped back and let it clatter to the mesh floor. Her jade knife.
My legs felt like they might fold under me as I picked up her knife. Stop them with a knife? Right. And even if I could, did I really want to? With Shade gone, Benthic Territory would have a chance. Ma and Pa would keep the homestead. All I had to do was … nothing.
Above me, Jibby disappeared with her into the elevator and the doors slid shut. Now that the structure was no longer swaying, Raj climbed onto the railing. With one arm around a vertical strut, he caught the noose and drew it in. The thin rail buckled under his weight, cracked where it was soldered to the beam, then snapped. Raj jumped back to the catwalk just in time.
Even though Lars had a harpistol aimed at his temple, Shade shook his head as if to clear it. He was collapsing from the tranquilizer that had been shot into him, but they were going to hang him anyway. Right now. Without judge or jury.
Raj kicked the other end of the railing. After three attempts, the rail broke free and clattered to the floor far below. One jagged piece remained, sticking out from the strut like an ax head.
Horrified, I surged forward but Doc gripped my arm. “We’re doing this for the good of the territory, Ty. To keep it going. You want your own homestead, right?”
I did. But not like this.
Raj circled behind Shade and he lifted his boot. The reality of it collapsed on me. He was going to kick Shade off. In the split second that his boot swung back, I jerked out of Doc’s hold and sprang between Shade and the edge of the catwalk.
“Ty, move!” Raj bellowed. If he kicked Shade, he’d send me plummeting to the Saloon floor below.
“You don’t know what he’s capable of,” Doc growled.
“No,” I agreed. “But I see what you’re capable of.”
When Shade edged back to give me another inch of room, I saw that under his heavy lids, the outlaw’s eyes were bright. The tranquilizer hadn’t affected him
nearly as much as he was pretending.
Above us, the elevator doors slid open.
It was all the distraction I needed. As the men glanced up through the grill, I raised the jade knife. “Kneel,” I hissed. Instantly Shade fell to his knees, tightening the rope that ran from his neck to the girder. I slashed at it while trying to keep my balance as boots pounded two catwalks up, making the whole structure jump. Still I sawed, acutely aware of the drop behind me. Finally the knife broke through the last strand of rope and Shade sprang to his feet. I spun, only to find myself looking down the barrel of a speargun.
“Step aside, Ty,” Doc commanded. Beside him stood Raj and Lars, their expressions suddenly worried.
“Bring down a judge and I will.” I glanced back to see Shade step through his arms so that his hands were now tied in front of him.
“Son, do what Doc says before you get hurt,” Lars said, sounding anxious.
“If he were like any other outlaw” — Doc took aim at Shade—“we could go by the book. But he isn’t.”
Gemma appeared at the top of the stairladder with Pa and Jibby on either side of her. Others crowded behind them. They wouldn’t make it down the two stairladders in time to stop Doc from shooting. That instant, Gemma gasped and I sensed Shade vanish behind me. I whirled to see that he hadn’t fallen—he’d jumped. Now he dangled from the jagged stub of railing still attached to the vertical strut. Writhing, he used the metal’s sharp edge to saw through the rope binding his hands.
“Move!” Doc shoved me aside, aiming the speargun at Shade, who twisted in the air just below us.
I took a deep breath and said loudly, “I have a Dark Gift. Are you going to take away my rights?”
My admission rang through the Saloon. All movement stopped. Ma and Pa froze on the stairs with Zoe and Hewitt clambering down behind them. The posse, men I’d known all my life, stared at me. And so did Doc, except that his look was triumphant. Probably because he’d finally gotten me to admit what he’d suspected all along.
With a loud snap, the rope binding Shade’s wrists broke and he dropped to the floor.
Everyone raced down the stairs to the Saloon, except me. I wrapped a leg around the strut and slid down, beating them all. But by the time I hit the floor, Shade was nowhere to be seen.
My parents were the first settlers onto the floor and their expressions were stricken. “I knew it,” Ma said. She looked to Pa. “I told you it didn’t go away.”
“Why did you say you couldn’t do it anymore?” Pa asked me.
The other settlers gathered around my parents. Hewitt and Zoe, too.
“You would have given up the homestead,” I said.
Ma looked close to tears. “It’s just a house.”
“The ocean is my home.”
“Ty,” Pa said, “living down here isn’t worth it if—”
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m like any other kid except I have this gift.”
Behind me someone clapped, slow and steady. I turned to see Shade — the translucent dark green version — leaning against the window where he must have been all along, hidden against the backdrop of the sea.
Zoe pulled herself from Pa’s grasp and ran to stand next to me. She faced the settlers. “I have a Dark Gift, too!” she said. “I can electrocute people.” She pointed proudly at Shade. “I shocked him.”
Hewitt slunk forward, looking reluctant, but he took a place next to Zoe. “I have one, too.”
Lars frowned. “What?”
“I’m a genius,” Hewitt mumbled.
His pa snorted.
“I didn’t say I was mature,” Hewitt said defensively. “But I don’t have to think to calculate.”
“That makes you a numbers whiz, honey,” Shurl said soothingly. “Lots of people have that gift.”
“Can lots of people tell you the atmospheric pressure of any room in this building just by walking into it?” Hewitt asked. “Or the exact temperature of seawater by dipping in one toe?”
Our parents shifted. Their expressions were of shock, grief, and worst of all, regret.
“We have to get them away from the water pressure,” Ma said suddenly.
“If we move Topside now,” Shurl said, turning to Lars, “while he’s still young —”
“His gift will go away?” Shade mocked. “I lived Topside for a year after Seablite and I’m not fixed.”
“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t move Topside!” Hewitt scampered over to his parents. “It’s worth a try.”
“I’m not leaving the ocean,” I said firmly. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t know that for a fact.” Ma’s expression was fierce.
“I know it for a fact.” Shade sauntered forward. “We’re healthier than you ‘normal’ folk. Our immune systems are better. But don’t believe me, ask Doc. There’s not an inch of me he didn’t test.”
We turned to one another and saw that Doc was not among us, then looked up to see him standing in front of the elevator as the doors opened.
“Stop him,” yelled Lars.
Gemma was the only one who hadn’t left the catwalk after my big announcement. As the others pounded up the first stairladder, she finished scaling the second one and ran for the third. From the Saloon floor, I watched Doc disappear into the elevator.
“Girl, push the button,” Raj bellowed. “Don’t let him get away.”
Scrambling onto the top catwalk, Gemma paused for a split second to look down. I knew how she felt about heights, and yet her fear didn’t stop her. The whole structure of catwalks swayed as she ran for the elevator and I nearly cheered out loud.
Hand outstretched, she flung herself toward the call button, but Doc stepped out long enough to seize her by the wrist and drag her into the elevator with him.
“No!” I shouted but the doors slid shut with Gemma trapped inside.
The others continued their ascent but I didn’t join them. They’d have to wait for the elevator to return before they could take it down to the Access Deck. And I was sure that’s where Doc was headed—to escape in a sub. I felt Shade’s gaze on me.
“Know a faster way?” he asked.
“Service duct.” I pointed at a hatch in the center shaft.
When he bolted for the hatch and slammed the button to open it, I followed right behind.
As I climbed down the ladder inside the narrow duct, I heard him kick open the hatch at the bottom and clamber out.
A moment later, I, too, emerged on the Access Deck and saw that someone had jammed a mantaboard between the elevator doors so that they couldn’t close.
Across the wet room, Doc held a speargun while gripping Gemma’s arm as if his life depended on it. “Take another step,” Doc warned Shade, “and she goes in.” Next to them, a minisub floated in the enormous moon pool.
“Think I won’t follow you?” Shade asked softly.
“This is the last sub,” Doc replied, training the speargun on him.
Circling in place, I saw that it was true. The vehicle hold was empty.
“And this is the last of the Liquigen.” Doc jerked his head toward the empty slots in the wall. Shoving Gemma down the ladder onto the moon pool’s submerged ledge, he took the Liquigen pack from under his arm and punctured it with the harpoon loaded in his gun. With a hiss, foam bubbled out. He flung the pack into the moon pool, where it floated, sputtering out its contents. “Before I go, let’s get one thing straight,” he said, glaring at Shade. “Living subsea messed up your brain, not me. I just tried to figure out why.”
“Left no stone unturned,” Shade agreed. “Must have really burned you up. After being so thorough, to get turned into the ‘wealth’s scapegoat. Called a fraud.”
Ignoring him, Doc tossed aside the sub’s hitching line.
“Shouldn’t have written that article, Doc,” Shade chided mockingly. “You know you can’t buck the ‘wealth.”
He must have hit a raw spot because Doc shot him a hostile look. “Everything in that arti
cle was true.”
“But you couldn’t prove it.” Shade’s tattoos writhed across his back like Medusa’s snakes. “Not after your evidence escaped.”
“Get in.” Doc shoved Gemma onto the minisub’s bumper. Arms windmilling, she caught her balance, then scampered up the hull and shimmied into the open hatch.
“That why you came back to Benthic Territory? To collect new evidence?” Shade pointed at me. “Show the world you were right?”
My fingers grew numb as all the blood in my body went toward fueling my brain so that I could comprehend Shade’s words. I was the reason Doc came subsea. So he could prove his theory about Dark Gifts? “I’m not an orphan,” I sputtered. “My parents wouldn’t let anyone use me like that.”
“Maybe they wouldn’t have had a say,” Shade speculated. “How were you going to get around them, Doc? Bet you had a plan.”
The numb feeling climbed my limbs and nearly stopped my heart. “Is that why you called my parents negligent today?” I demanded. “So you could take them to court and have them declared unfit?”
Doc’s gaze jumped to me for only a second, but I saw a world of guilt in his glance.
Shade must have caught it, too, because he snorted with contempt. “Don’t take it personally, kid. Doc’s got a reputation to restore.”
“Shut up,” Doc snarled. Keeping the speargun trained on Shade, he leapt onto the minisub’s bumper, only to have it bobble under his feet.
Through the sub’s viewport, I spotted Gemma studying the control panel with a determined expression. She shoved the joystick forward and the sub took off, sinking as it went. The sudden propulsion sent Doc tumbling backward, and with a thunderous splash, he hit the water. As he floundered, the minisub banged into the far side of the moon pool and I ran the length of the room to help her. But Gemma didn’t seem to need my help. She stood on her seat and hoisted herself out the hatch as seawater poured in around her, filling the cockpit.